Unit Synopsis
On completion of this unit, you will be able to identify and discuss the clinical significance of viruses, fungi and parasites causing human disease. You will investigate the morphological characteristics, epidemiology, laboratory identification of these microorganisms and will be able to debate causes of mycological, parasitic and viral infectious diseases. You will discuss the life cycle of important parasites and their relevance to disease control. You will be able to interpret basic serological tests for the detection of human pathogenic viruses. Problem-solving and decision making skills will be developed through the use of authentic case studies. Skill development in instrument calibration, best practice measurement, interpretation of test results and test quality control monitoring will occur through practical exercises. You will be required to attend a residential school on the Rockhampton campus in order to promote the development of unit learning outcomes. The residential school may be scheduled outside of the term of offering of the unit.
Details
| Level | Postgraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 8 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Prerequisite Enrolment in Master of Laboratory Medicine (CM18). Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School |
Compulsory Residential School View Unit Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Group Work | 20% |
| 2. Written Assessment | 20% |
| 3. Examination | 60% |
| 4. Laboratory/Practical | 0% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2024 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 71.43% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 22.11% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: SUTE feedback, informal feedback
Some students found the use of multiple markers was unacceptable, and expected all assessments to be marked by the Unit coordinator.
With a large international cohort, future iterations of this unit will provide more information relating to assessment moderation and the use of multiple markers in large units to ensure that students are both more familiar with, and comfortable with the process.
The marking and moderation processes were explained in detail to the students to ensure that they were familiar with how these processes occur.
Source: SUTE feedback
Some students believed that the word limit for the written assessment was too restrictive and should have been higher. It is impossible to include the required detail in 3000 words.
In future offerings more support will be provided for students to assist them with their scientific writing. This will be in the form of dedicated tutorial time, embedded ALC sessions and drop in sessions to help to improve students' writing, researching, and referencing skills.
Extensive support was scaffolded into the unit, with both ALC tutorials and dedicated time in the weekly tutorials to assist students in completing the assessment.
Source: SUTE Feedback
The lecturer needs to use Kahoot! quizzes to facilitate more interaction.
Students would like more interactive content in tutorials. Interactive content, such as Kahoot! quizzes, will be developed to support weekly content.
In Progress
Source: Self-reflection
The use of workbooks for assessing the Residential School practical isn't sufficient to assess student competency.
The unit coordinator will seek to implement a practical assessment on the final day of the Residential School for future offerings.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Discuss the clinical significance and laboratory detection of the principal bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic pathogens of each of the human body systems.
- Evaluate and interpret different testing methods used in the detection and monitoring of infectious diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.
- Evaluate and interpret different testing methods used in the determination of antimicrobial susceptibility of bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.
- Perform practical skills necessary to identify pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites and to determine their antimicrobial susceptibility.
- Implement the principles of quality control processes in a diagnostic microbiology laboratory for the practice of bacteriology, virology, mycology and parasitology identification and apply them in a practical setting.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Group Work | • | ||||
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | ||
| 3 - Examination | • | • | • | ||
| 4 - Laboratory/Practical | • | • | • | • | • |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | • | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Communication | • | • | • | • | • |
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | • | • | • | • | • |
| 6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility | • | • | |||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | |